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The Cascadia Subd uction A LITERARY Z QUARTERLY on July 2014 X Vol. 4. No. 3 e ESSAY Imaginary Junctions: On Terry A. Garey and Speculative Poetry by Mark Rich Cover, Cover, POEMS Elephants in the Alley T he Magazine of he Magazine of Cave Discovery by Terry A. Garey GRANDMOTHER MAGMA The Female Man S by Joanna Russ pec IN THIS ISSUE by Kim Stanley Robinson ulative Poetry, 2013 Poetry, ulative BOOK REVIEWS Lovecraft’s Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow Long Hidden edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older X Kantianism, Liberalism, and ark Rich Feminism: Resisting Oppression M by Carol Hay Lonely Stardust: Two Plays, a Speech, and Eight Essays by Andrea Hairston Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert What Makes This Book So “Since its launch in 2011 The Cascadia Subduction Zone has emerged as one of the Great and My Real Children best critical journals the field has to offer.” by Jo Walton h Jonathan McCalmont, February 18, 2013, Hugo Ballot Nomination FEATURED ARTIST $5.00 Mark Rich Managing Editor Lew Gilchrist Reviews Editor VOL. 4 NO. 3 — JULY 2014 Nisi Shawl ESSAY Features Editor Imaginary Junctions: On Terry A. Garey and Speculative Poetry L. Timmel Duchamp by Mark Rich h 1 Arts Editor Kath Wilham POEMS Elephants in the Alley $5.00 Cave Discovery by Terry A. Garey h 9 GRANDMOTHER MAGMA The Female Man, by Joanna Russ by Kim Stanley Robinson h 10 BOOK REVIEWS Lovecraft’s Monsters, edited by Ellen Datlow reviewed by Usman T. Malik h 12 Long Hidden, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older reviewed by Maria Velazquez h 15 Lonely Stardust: Two Plays, a Speech, and Eight Essays, by Andrea Hairston reviewed by Adrian Khactu h 16 Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism: Resisting Oppression, by Carol Hay reviewed by Nancy Jane Moore h 18 Daughter of Mystery, by Heather Rose Jones reviewed by Liz Bourke h 20 The Memory Garden, by Mary Rickert reviewed by Caren Gussoff h 21 What Makes This Book So Great and My Real Children, by Jo Walton reviewed by Cat Rambo h 22 FEATURED ARTIST Mark Rich h 24 Subscriptions and single issues online at: To order by check, payable to: www.thecsz.com Aqueduct Press Print subscription: $16/yr; P.O. Box 95787 Print single issue: $5 Seattle, WA 98145-2787 Electronic Subscription (PDF format): [Washington State Residents $10 per year add 9.5% sales tax.] Electronic single issue: $3 In This Issue Cover banner collagraph of the Cascadia subduction zone by Marilyn Liden Bode Imaginary Junctions: On Terry A. Garey and Speculative Poetry y by Mark Rich When they do not disappear entirely in her choice of language; and despite her from our recollections and our annals of great capacity for humorous comment and achievement, our miniaturists come to perspective, her works reveal a seriousness seem overshadowed by the main events that comes from having established a ra- …our miniaturists come shaping our times — the novels, the mov- tional and mature worldview along with a to seem overshadowed ies, the television serials, even the occa- trained aesthetic sense. by the main events sional shorter piece of prose plucked up She refers to herself at times as a failed shaping our times — the by the vagaries of voting and made promi- novelist. novels, the movies, the nent by prize-winning. If ever she were to call herself a failed television serials, even We know how easily short-story writers poet it would be, I believe, not only un- the occasional shorter disappear, even when they publish a book truthful but uncharacteristically dishonest. piece of prose plucked up or two. Think how it must be for poets, ∞ ∞ ∞ by the vagaries of voting then. Some editors have regarded poets Some elements in works that have ap- and made prominent by as sources for typographic filler to rank peared under the speculative poetry banner prize-winning. alongside anecdote-writers for Reader’s derive from the centuries-old Keplerian Digest, and their poems as unworthy of tradition that conflates the expansive listing on contents pages. worldview with the astronomical vision: The form that is speculative poetry, and for their imaginative projections move the minor literary movement of the same within a realm not restricted to the terres- name, has witnessed a flux in and out on trial. “Space flight” per se needs play no ob- the part of writers interested in its po- vious role within these poems: for a sense tential, who have heeded a siren call in- of departure, of “flight,” rises into mind audible to most others. Some dabble for a from the page without the super -science Terry A. Garey’s poems time, engaging in a few outbursts. Others evocations that had proven so essential to …reveal a seriousness settle in who address their small public as science fiction as a genre of literary positiv- that comes from having i if from out of a privately discovered space, ism during its 1930s to 1950s blossoming, established a rational and whose voices, thoughts, and cadences fruiting, and decline. Poems of this sort and mature worldview 1 then linger, becoming part of the scene’s draw upon troves of language and concept along with a trained ambient texture. offered by science, deriving metaphoric aesthetic sense. I suspect that most who hear poetry’s splendor from the Keplerian vision. They call succumb not so much due to literary share with “game” science-fantasy, the ambition — although that must be part of main successor to positivist science fiction, it — as to the workings of a natural process. in having the earlier positivism reduced to They have read poetry, have appreciated it, stage decoration or backdrop. Yet they also and, once having acknowledged the cre- share with speculative fiction, the second- ative impulse within their souls, attempt it. ary successor, in holding to the strand of Some set their talents ablaze at the Symbolism that had lent vitality to science shrine of sheer prolificity — a winning fiction, even at its most positivist. strategy: for an endlessly “productive” That Garey has felt comfortable within writer will hit upon something publish- this tradition may be seen in two short able, at some point or points, during one works that appeared in an early issue of These poems meditatively project wishes onto headlong feat of velocity or another. The Magazine of Speculative Poetry (here- astronomical imagery in Others seem more apt to set their after MSP): “if there is a Dog Star there a way that makes them talents afire less impulsively — doing so should be,” and “I have hidden your body.” verge toward fantasy. when it will help them explore the space These poems meditatively project wishes Lacking cohesive, that they have discovered for themselves. onto astronomical imagery in a way that extended, controlling These poets seem to move forward with makes them verge toward fantasy. Lack- metaphors, they make deliberation and without undue haste. ing cohesive, extended, controlling meta- their marks simply by Since having become acquainted with phors, they make their marks simply by being effective poems. her work some thirty years ago, I have being effective poems. Their claim to being seen qualities in Terry A. Garey’s poems speculative poetry falls on the weak side: that make me see her as a writer of the last for they remain rooted in a here-and-now sort. She displays care in her approach and consciousness. Neither poem adopts the Cont. on p. 2 n Imaginary Junctions stance that its prevailing metaphor ex- These images suggest rootedness liter- (cont. from p. 1) ists outside the reader’s world of possi- ally, with “holdfast,” and figuratively, with bilities. Although I feel inclined to regard “nest.” The poem offers its third simile: the glance that “spreads out to the stars / like age coming on too fast hums through the universe” as being one The line engages with a colloquial sense — that is looking upon a mythic sky, hence a metaphoric and not a literal or astronomi- of one’s awareness of time’s swift pas- cal one, this kind of imaginative leap falls sage — and with an imaginative one: for its short of stepping away from, and separat- phrasing suggests that something is rush- ing itself from, consensus reality. ing backwards in time out of the future, These poems retain a Twelve years after those poems ap- toward the speaker or reader. This gives the focus on the astronomical, peared, Garey revealed her development poem a giddiness: for what is “like” being which counters, without in new works including “Years at Bay (not rooted, while also “like” age coming on too counteracting, a secondary a death poem),” which appeared in the fast? The word next to appear, “travel,” sit- focus on the biological Spring 1997 MSP alongside two other ac- uates the reader at the heart of the circling and earthly. complished works, “Neophyte Station” and and perhaps even circular movement made “exploration of skies.” by the poem: These poems retain a focus on the astro- travel pulls at my time line nomical, which counters, without counter- blurring the stars as I look for their acting, a secondary focus on the biological steady burn and earthly. To these elements she adds the ...to fasten me to a particular point curiosity and openness of a soul caught in A further rootedness does seem evident confusion — a confusion born of an aware- in this second stanza: the rootedness of a ness of existing within contraries. “Dream” fixed celestial view. The third stanza then and the “everyday sense,” for instance, ex- repeats the approach taken by the first: ist in opposition.